Phantom: Her Ruthless Fiancé: 50 Loving States, Kentucky (Ruthless Triad)

by Theodora Taylor

  Including Skylar, who I knew for a fact had asked Minerva for a love potion after she set her sights on Clement Calson of the Cal-Mart Calsons, back when they’d both been attending the University of Kentucky. And another potion, when she’d wanted to convince him to stay and work for Glendaver as opposed to returning to his family business in Arkansas.

  I ignored Skylar and asked, “How about your little sister? She unblocked on The Seasons of Fae series yet?”

  “Girl, no. Our niece Sharon went up there to help her, you know. But more than a decade later, and still no book.”

  “That’s really too bad.” I wasn’t just trying to show empathy for her youngest sister Marleen, who wrote under the pen name Clara Quinn. I’d been obsessed with her YA novels back during my Manhattan U years—seriously, they had been the only thing that got me through my dual degree program.”

  She’d said from the start that her fairy books would be a ten-book cycle, but book nine had ended on a huge cliffhanger over a decade ago, and for reasons no one understood, she’d been concentrating on her sci-fi and dystopian stuff ever since.

  “Last time I spoke to Sharon, I tried to convince her to sneak one of my concoctions into her morning Metamucil.’ But you know what she told me?”

  “What?” I asked.

  As a long-time fan, I was always willing to listen to any scrap of real-life information Minerva had on the famous recluse. Growing up, I couldn’t believe our housekeeper actually knew Clara Quinn, much less was her sister. She’d even taken vacations a few times to go up to visit her in Vermont. So I leaned all the way in for the next tidbit.

  “She said she doesn’t believe in drugging people against their will, and besides that, she doesn’t drink a morning Metamucil! Can you believe that?”

  Minerva slapped her thigh. “So I asked her how she was managing her fiber? I mean, how did her poop look? You’re a doctor, too, so you get where I’m going with this—that’s probably why she can’t write.”

  I nodded—not necessarily because I agreed with Minerva but because I was born and bred southerner. I honestly didn’t know how to disagree with any woman over the age of sixty.

  But Skylar gasped like the lead she was in our high school’s production of The Crucible.

  “Miss Minerva! If you could please refrain from discussing such delicate matters around my children!”

  “Mama says that matters below the waist aren’t going to be discussed at the dinner table,” Skylar’s eight-year-old mini-me daughter, Harper, said in a voice that I swear sounded exactly like my sister’s at that age.

  See, here was a good reason to come home for Thanksgiving, I decided. My longing to have children was always muted by Skylar’s freakishly perfect ones.

  “I changed your mama’s nasty diapers growing up,” Minerva answered the little girl who’d had the nerve to try to scold her. “So if she wanted that to not ever be a discussion, maybe she should have spewed less crap. I’m still haunted by the memory.”

  Good ol’ Minerva. Skylar turned a deep red, and maybe her children weren’t so perfect after all. I could tell that, like me, they were working hard not to laugh.

  “Anyway, come visit me in the kitchen after your done with your breakfast,” Minerva said to me. “I’ll put you to work shelling peas and peeling potatoes while I catch you up on all the gossip you missed since your last visit.”

  Skylar stayed quiet this time until Minerva left. But as soon as the older woman was safely out of earshot, she asked, “Do you think we ought to talk to Mama about putting her on a retirement plan? I swear she gets more and more inappropriate by the day. And I don’t know how to feel about her putting you to work every time you come home for a visit. She never does that to me. Don’t you think that’s a bit…” She lowered her voice to whisper, “racist?”

  I held my tongue on all of it. Arguments of Thanksgiving pasts had taught me not to ever try to explain how racism works to my stubbornly “I don’t see color” sister.

  Also, I doubted she’d appreciate knowing that Minerva was actually showing me favoritism.

  She liked me enough to want me around while she was putting together the hugest meal of the year. Meanwhile, Skylar and her kids mostly got shooed out of her kitchen.

  Luckily Mama chose that moment to swan into the breakfast nook. Like Skylar, she also had a mostly silent husband pulling up the rear. However, Hector, her former personal trainer, was six years younger than Clement.

  Skylar hated that our mother had “embarrassed us so very greatly” by marrying a man nearly half her age in a big wedding last June.

  But since our father left her for a woman also nearly half his age, I can’t help but have mad respect for my mom. Take that patriarchal stereotype! What’s good for the gander is good for the swan?

  Also, it had been fascinating to watch her transform into a woman who did exactly what she wanted over the last couple of years. Rose Glendaver had been bred to revolve around a rich husband just like her mother and her mother before that had. She’d tried to raise her daughters to do the same and still lectured me about not letting my eggs dry up after her problems with infertility. But I loved that she now insisted on living her best life.

  “Oh, Mama, just the person I wanted to see,” Skylar said, ignoring Hector all together.

  “I was wondering if you could watch the kids for a little bit this afternoon. Dad asked Olivia and me to come by for a squeeze-in.”

  “He did?” Mama and I both asked together.

  A squeeze-in was what Dad called a visit—a holdover from the years when he put in ten to twelve hour days at the office but would schedule regular squeeze-in appointments with Skylar and me because he’d read that was how Bill Clinton handled scheduling extra time with Chelsea Clinton when he was in the White House.

  But we never met on T-Day anymore since we always attended the Glendaver Thanksgiving Weekend Hunt’s afterparty on Friday anyway.

  “What do you think he wants?” I asked Skylar.

  “I don’t know,” Skylar answered, fretting her hands.

  “Probably something to do with the business or that Uganda charity of his. You know that’s all he cares about,” Mama answered. “But I can’t babysit. I have pre-dinner drinks with Glory and Petunia scheduled. “Can you ask Minerva to do it?”

  “She’s making Thanksgiving Dinner for eight,” I pointed out.

  Then after everyone else sat around looking stymied, I realized I was the only one willing to point out. “Maybe your husband can do it?”

  Rookie mistake.

  My southern breakfast got thoroughly seasoned with several shakes of indignant “why do you come down here every year to judge me and how I live my life?” and “this is why things didn’t work out for you and Garrett” and “you wouldn’t be childless and alone if you just learned how to treat a man.”

  I put up with it as I usually did.

  Eric’s question about why I never stood up for myself floated back into my head. This. This was why.

  I’d stand up for others until the day I die—especially women with disabilities like my birth mother. But, growing up, I’d learned that it was better to keep real Olivia in check, to never open my mouth, or assert myself in any way because this was almost always the result.

  Skylar got so bad that Hector graciously stepped in to volunteer to watch my sister’s robot children. Still, she refused to speak to me as she drove us over to Glendaver Castle, our childhood home.

  The Scottish-Inspired stone estate wasn’t truly a castle—it wasn’t fortified or occupied by royalty. But it was themed out to look like one, and it was so large that it had its own zip code in Glendaver County, where the estate was located along with the Glendaver Bourbon distillery and headquarters.

  However, Skylar broke her silence when we pulled up the long drive to find my father waiting for us on the American Castle’s steps.

  Our last squeeze-in was at Christmas, and not much had changed since then. He was still tri
m and slightly athletic with just the right amount of flecks in his salt and pepper hair to appear wise and in charge—but not, you know, old.

  Every other week, a personal stylist came by the castle to help him walk that fine line between Astute CEO and Decrepit Old Man. I knew because he loved to double book squeeze-ins while Stacey was working her magic.

  However, the discreet styling wasn’t doing its job today. He looked all sixty-eight of his years, thanks to his grave expression. Even more alarming than that, he’d met us outside as opposed to having one of the servants escort us to wherever he was on the premises.

  I climbed out of my sister’s Land Rover as soon as Skylar put it into park.

  “Dad, what’s wrong?” I asked, truly worried.

  In answer, Dad pulled me into his arms for a tight hug. “Look at you, worrying about me, when you’re the one that idiot betrayed. You know, I didn’t say anything before because it wasn’t my place. But I never liked him. And he left you for your stepsister of all people!”

  Oh, so he knew. And, of course, he’d called me over to commiserate. Dad had always had what my mother derisively referred to as a “bleeding heart,” but what the rest of the world would call basic empathy.

  I usually appreciated that about him. But in this case, I really wished he hadn’t bothered. I already felt embarrassed enough that I’d wasted nearly six years with that lying cheat.

  “What do you mean?” Skylar asked behind us. “What does Leighton have to do with the break-up?”

  Dad released me from the hug to give me a surprised look. “You didn’t tell her?”

  “Tell me what?” Skylar demanded.

  I grimaced and admitted, “Garrett and I broke up because I discovered he was cheating on me with Leighton.”

  “What?!” Skylar screeched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to hear a lecture about how I would have been able to keep my man if I catered to him more,” I answered, voice frank.

  “I did warn you about those New York women. Nest of vipers, that city,” Skylar insisted. “I told you about how they eyed my Clem like he was a steak they wanted to eat.”

  Yes, she had—several times.

  She and Clement had come to visit me in New York once—just once, but that had been enough to seal her opinion of the place, along with a binge-watch of all six seasons of Sex in the City before her trip.

  “But in this case, I’m on your side, Livvy,” she continued. “Dad’s right. Of all the people to cheat on you with, why did he choose that little girl? And Dad, I’m sure even you could not be more ashamed.”

  Skylar threw him a challenging look.

  And I had to admit I was also curious about where his alliance lay in the face of all of this.

  So I was glad when Skylar demanded to know, “Does this affect the possible acquisition of Glendaver by Easton Whiskey that Clement was telling me about?”

  “Aw, well, I did want to keep Glendaver in the family. That’s why I wouldn’t even consider their merger offer until after Garrett proposed….” Dad said.

  “So it’s off, then,” Skylar declared, her voice a little triumphant. Neither of us had loved watching our parents’ bitter divorce play out. But Skylar had taken his remarriage to another blonde woman with another blonde daughter half her age particularly hard—like both she and mom had gotten swapped out.

  Dad winced. “Hey, Sky, let’s focus on Olivia right now. I’m afraid she’s going to need all the support she can get. That’s why I invited you both here instead of just her.”

  My stomach rolled with a new dread as I realized my father hadn’t wanted to just give me a hug and say he never liked Garrett anyway.

  “What, Dad? What is it?”

  10

  Skylar and I had driven over to Dad’s house in silence. And we drove back in silence as well—but this time, it was because we were both in a state of shock.

  Neither of us spoke until she put the car in park and asked, “So how do you want to handle this?”

  “I don’t know.” The words sounded like they were coming from somewhere in the distance. But as far as I knew, I was the one speaking.

  “Should we make a formal announcement at dinner or maybe pull Mama aside…”

  I could only imagine my mother’s response.

  First, she’d blame it on Dad. Then she’d find a way to make it all about herself.

  My ultimate betrayal would become another twist in her divorce saga. Just like she’d turned my formerly triumphant adoption story into a plot point about how her marriage simply could not be saved after she and Dad split.

  “I don’t know,” the faraway voice that apparently belonged to me answered Skylar again.

  “Are you still going to the hunt’s afterparty tomorrow?”

  She answered that question for herself without giving me the chance to respond. “Why am I even asking? Of course, you’re not. You can’t go to the party now. It would be too humiliating.”

  “I don’t know, Skylar! I don’t know!” I answered. But I stopped and got a hold of myself when I realized I was shouting. “Just…tell Minerva I won’t be able to shuck peas and peel potatoes this year. Please apologize to her for me.”

  With that, I climbed out of the car.

  “Well, I’ll tell her, but I don’t think there’s any need to apologize since she shouldn’t have—”

  I couldn’t. I just couldn't deal with Skylar today. I slammed the door on her latest opinion about me and my actions, and I ran. Ran the same way I did that night when I found out Garrett was cheating on me. This time all the way up to my room.

  I’d made my bed and cleaned my room this morning, just as I always had since figuring out as a child that some servant with a long list of things to do would have to clean up after me if I didn’t do the job myself.

  The sight of the pretty magazine-worthy room made me seethe for some reason. Rage surged through my body, and before I could stop myself, I flipped over the gilded cream vanity seat sitting in front of the white French Provincial princess dresser.

  I didn’t want to stop there either.

  I yearned to rip down the canopy curtains from the bed crown, tear the gallery frames off the wall, throw all those vintage pillows out the window, and hang on that cute little chandelier until it came crashing to the ground.

  My breath came out in short, angry spurts. I wanted to destroy this room so bad.

  Okay, Olivia, you need to calm down.

  I listened to that reasonable voice inside my head and went through the same protocol I employed when life got too overwhelming at the clinic.

  First step: Stop, breathe, and label the feeling.

  Okay, I’m.…I’m breathing, I’m labeling all the feelings: anger, resentment, jealousy, wrath—so much wrath that I don’t know what to do with it or how to function….

  I breathed some more to keep another wave of helpless rage from overwhelming me. I breathed and breathed until I was ready for the next step: call Eric or Bernice.

  Sure, this was a personal problem, but considering I didn’t have any friends I could talk to outside of them, I’d have to employ the same protocol.

  Okay, Eric was back in California, visiting his family—not even up yet.

  But maybe Bernice would be available? Her cousin-in-law, Colin Fairgood, always flew her and O2 down to Tennessee for Thanksgiving because Bernice and his wife were what Bernice referred to as “best cousin friends.”

  I pulled my phone out of my purse. Maybe she’d have a little time to talk me down from this rage cliff before I completely flipped out?

  I had one of those wallet cases so that if I misplaced my phone somewhere, I’d basically lose my entire life. Thank goodness Garrett had simply dropped my clutch into the brownstone’s mailbox the morning after the gala as I’d requested, or I would have been up the creek without a paddle.

  Not that I could feel any gratitude toward Garrett. Especially right now.

  Unfo
rtunately, the barely controlled rage had my hands trembling so bad, I dropped the phone on the floor at just the right angle to make the wallet part’s flip-door fly open.

  And out came that business card I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get rid of even after I slunk out of the Dragon’s penthouse. The phone number he’d given me before I left his grandmother’s hospital room. His words whispered through my head again.

  “You ever need anything, this is the number to call.”

  He’d meant for emergencies. I should only call him in case of an emergency. And this was many things—frustrating, humiliating, and enraging—but it wasn’t an emergency.

  So I called Bernice. No answer. Then one of those canned responses that iPhone’s give you the option of sending when you can’t be bothered to type out a text popped up on my screen:

  “Sorry, can’t talk right now.”

  I knew Bernice was probably just busy, and I shouldn’t take it personally. But after my father’s announcement, my heart trembled with hurt. Everything felt personal. Everything felt like a rejection.

  And that business card continued to stare up at me from the floor.

  I stared back at it. And a few moments into our stand-off, I caved and thumbed the number into my touchscreen number pad.

  Then I got to feel even more foolish than I already did, as I raised the phone to my ear. I mean, it was Thanksgiving. And he was an international man of business. He probably wouldn’t even answer—

  “O, what’s wrong?” his voice came down the line, intense and strong.

  “Hello, I um…” just decided to call my first and only one-night stand for some comfort.

  “I was just calling to say Happy Thanksgiving,” I told him instead.

  There was a long beat of silence. Then: “Most people send text these days. They got those Bitmojis set up for every holiday now.”